With their first expansion, Rise of the Godslayer, acting as a "lateral" expansion, Funcom's Age of Conan is finally hitting its stride and showing off its potential

When it comes to expansions and MMORPGs, most development companies can be quite transparent as to the ways they want to push their game, and you can easily read these directions by simply looking at the main intentions of the expansions themselves. Blizzard, for example, "expands" upon the World of Warcraft universe by scrapping the old and ushering in the new, thereby demonstrating their desire for players to constantly feel like they're playing a brand new MMORPG with every expansion. For other MMORPGs, like Aion or Final Fantasy XI, expansions typically revolve around deficiencies in the original game, like the introduction of daily quests for Aion to alleviate that "grindy" feeling, or the introduction of Campaign in Final Fantasy XI to allow players a way of leveling up without always relying on a party.

In this way, when I first heard that Funcom was planning an expansion for AoC, I'll admit that I was a little bit wary. Here was an MMORPG known for being rather slim on content when it was first released and, just as the holes have been filled and the game is starting to go somewhere, Funcom decides to expand? What kind of message is that?

On the other hand, over the past two years Funcom has really shown that they are absolutely committed to whatever they start. Quite unlike some MMORPGs which settle into oblivion when their MMO isn't posting "World of Warcraft" numbers, Funcom has shown some real tenacity with Age of Conan, and you can see just how much effort they've put into this game. Thus, even though I was slightly worried about this ambitious MMORPG's expansion efforts, I'll admit that I was curious to see just how Funcom managed to expand Age of Conan, without simply stretching the game beyond repair.

To throw out some quick information on AoC's Rise of the Godslayer, this expansion takes players to the mystical land of the east, Khitai, as described by Conan author Robert E. Howard. Early on, Funcom made a great call with this expansion, as they decided that RotG would be more of a lateral than a vertical expansion. In other words, Rise of the Godslayer isn't a simple remodel of AoC with an extra 20 levels, it's really an expansion - in every sense of the word.

While there isn't a level cap increase coming with RotG, there is the highly anticipated "Alternate Advancement" system, where players can earn points for their actions and then spend these points on perks or new abilities to further progress their character. Interestingly enough, while there are easily 25+ perks per class to choose from, players only have six "perk" slots that they can use at any given point in time. In addition to this, some good perks / abilities can take up two slots on their own, ultimately forcing players to learn to mix and match their perks as the situation demands. For their other MMORPG in the making, The Secret World, Funcom once noted that it wouldn't take too long to master one thing, but it would take a long time to master everything (so that you can adapt to situations easier), and this also seems to be the case here.

In addition, while there are fewer zones in the expansion in comparison to the older content, these zones are positively massive. Each new zone explores a different region of eastern Asia, and they all stretch far beyond what the eye can see. If players were originally griping about being contained in their small maps, they're definitely in for a pleasant surprise with Rise of the Godslayer. Ultimately, it seems as though Funcom wants more of their players to be focused on a single map, and if this was their intention, then they've certainly done that right.

In terms of actual content, Rise of the Godslayer seems to be really focused on creating specific content for specific demographics. Scattered throughout the large expansion zones, there are factions to be found, and players can ally themselves with certain factions by doing repeatable quests and killing NPCs of the opposing faction. By "grinding" reputation with these various factions, players are then able to purchase one or two pieces of high-end equipment, although the equipment itself is spread out across many factions, so you will need to ally yourself with more than one.